ABC to stick with dramas like 'Nashville'

ABC to stick with dramas like 'Nashville'

Katherine Bomboy-Thornton/ABC

Fans of "Nashville" can rest easy: ABC is sticking with the drama (with Hayden Panettiere, above).

ABC will keep putting its money on long-arcing emotional dramas like “Revenge,” “Nashville” and “Scandal,” Entertainment President Paul Lee told TV critics Thursday.

Conceding he was “disappointed” that two of those dramas flopped last fall â€" “Last Resort” and “666 Park Avenue” â€" Lee said it remains the brand of ABC’s dramatic future.

He noted that in the next month, the network will roll out two more dramas with long-term storylines: “Red Widow,” in which Radha Mitchell plays a woman who must make an unholy alliance with drug smugglers to save her family, and “Zero Hour,” in which long-time “ER” star Anthony Edwards returns as a man who must try to rescue his wife from a deeply rooted criminal gang that also just might destroy the world.

“We want shows where people relate to the characters on an emotional level,” said Lee. “If we don’t nail the emotion, we don’t nail the show.”

On the sitcom front, where he has also tried to raise ABC’s game, he called “Modern Family” “the best show on television” and bravely defended two other sitcoms that have gotten only modest ratings: “Happy Endings” and “Don’t Trust the B In Apartment 23.”

Elsewhere on the network, Lee said he’s “delighted” with the strong ratings start for Jimmy Kimmel’s new 11:35 p.m. show and has great expectations for “S.H.I.E.L.D.,” a comic book-based drama Joss Whedon is developing for next fall.